Randome News: November 14, 2024

DISCLAIMER: Zak's Random News is very random and doesn't cover many things, and not everything may be accurate, because I'm just some guy. Go find a real news source.

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Good morning. It’s November 14, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I feel better today than yesterday, so I’m trying to appreciate that. Meanwhile, the news keeps coming in hot and fast, and in the 40 minutes or so I have available each morning to tell you things, it’s always hit-and-miss in terms of what I can figure out is important or not. Let’s go.

• The first power flex by the Republican-led legislative branch over the will of Dumples the Clown happened yesterday with the election of Senator John Thune (R-SD) as the next Senate majority leader.
• He’s been a close pal of outgoing majority leader Mitch McConnell, and trust me… he’s an asshole in the traditional conservative Republican sense. But he’s not an ultra-MAGA asshole, and Dumpy had really wanted them to choose Rick Scott (R-FL) in the role.
• Scott was being championed for the role in recent days not only by Dumpy himself but also by several of his little friends, including Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy. and Tucker Carlson. 
• The election was conducted by secret ballot, which is probably one way they had the balls to stand up against the Dumpster. Thune won yesterday’s vote 29-24 in the second round of voting. Scott wasn’t even in consideration.
• Something Dumpy seems to forget — more more likely, never really learned.
• The US government is run by three branches — executive, legislative, and judicial — each with equal power and the ability to have checks and balances on each other.
• Even with the Republicans essentially running all three — the House is informally at 219-211 at the moment — there will be plenty of infighting and power grabbing between them.
• Moving on.
• A couple more Dumpy appointments to his Nightmare Team- er, I mean, cabinet to talk about.
• Dump announced yesterday that he has selected former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard — who represented Hawaii in Congress as a Democrat and unsuccessfully sought the party's presidential nomination in 2020 — to serve as his director of national intelligence.
• I probably don’t have to tell you all the weird shit around Gabbard. She was a Democrat who endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential campaign. Then she switched alliance to the Republican party after being a progressive Dem.
• Yup.
• Dump’s next move may be the first that gets shoved back in his face. He nominated GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to serve as his attorney general.
• Yes, that Matt Gaetz. The one who has been under an ongoing review by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which said in a statement earlier this year it was looking into allegations that Gaetz may have "engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct." 
• Word on the street is that the Republicans in the Senate fucking hate Gaetz. Even the wishy-washiest of Senators, Susan Collins (R-ME) said, “Obviously the president has the right to nominate whomever he wishes. But this is why the Senate's advise and consent process is so important. I'm sure that there will be many, many questions raised at Mr. Gaetz's hearing, if in fact the nomination goes forward.”
• Uh huh. “If.”
• One Republican in the House of Representatives wouldn’t go on record, but put it even more bluntly: “It's an obvious throwaway nomination that has no chance in the Senate.”
• But then the plot thickened when Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress yesterday day, effective immediately.
• What? I wonder why?
• Well, within the next couple of days, the House Ethics Committee was supposed to release a report on sexual misconduct and drug allegations against him.
• And now Gaetz — Dumpy’s attorney general pick, the top cop int he land — will no longer be subject to the probe following his resignation. Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS) confirmed that the committee has no jurisdiction over a member of Congress once that member leaves.
• So already, the Dump regime is starting as a fucking joke.
• Anyway, as long as he remains the candidate for AG, Gaetz will face questioning during his confirmation hearing about the ethics committee probe, which also investigated allegations he accepted improper gifts and gave special privileges to friends. 
• So that will be fun.
• And speaking of fun… a breaking story from this morning. And this is not a joke, nor is it satire. This is real.
• The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.
• The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, TX; trademarks; and video archive. The sale price was not immediately disclosed. 
• Hahahahahahahahahahaha (deep breath)…. hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
• One other heartwarming fact about this: The Onion said its exclusive launch advertiser will be the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety.
• I could not be happier about this.
• In other news…
• The FBI has raided the home of the chief executive of Polymarket, a betting platform that drew widespread attention for strongly favoring Donald Trump to win the presidential election.
• They executed a search warrant on CEO Shayne Coplan at his Manhattan home yesterday.
• Coplan, 26, was roused from bed at 6am by federal agents who demanded he turn over his phone and other electronic devices.
• This is super fascinating for those of us who follow the political world. There was always something very sketchy about Polymarket, and I’m looking forward to getting the details.
• Let’s move on.
• Trump and Biden met yesterday morning at the White House, part of a presidential tradition that the fat whiny turd skipped four years ago because he’s a giant baby.
• Biden said, “I look forward to having a smooth transition. We'll do everything we can to make sure you're accommodated, what you need.”
• Dumples the Clown replied, “I appreciate very much the transition that's so smooth. It will be as smooth as it can get, and I very much appreciate that.”
• Why does he always sound like a 4th grader who forgot to prepare for an oral report?
• Dumpy is also a good lead-in to my next story, since he eats Big Macs every fucking day.
• I highly advice you to not eat at McDonald’s. Look, I also enjoy a Big Mac or a Filet-O-Fish now and then. I do.
• But that deadly E. coli outbreak linked to slivered onions on McDonald's Quarter Pounder burgers was way worse than initially reported. As of now, it has sickened 104 people in 14 states, per an update yesterday. 
• How bad? At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, CO died.
• Most of this happened in late September and through October, but I find the fact that the information was buried for weeks after the fact doesn’t instill trust in the restaurant chain, ya know?
• Back in political news…
• In the “Don’t Get Your Hopes Up” folder, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) is not giving up on retaining his U.S. Senate seat. The three-term Democrat is currently locked in a tight race with Dave McCormick, trailing the Republican by just over 29,000 votes as of last night.
• Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced yesterday afternoon that unofficial results in the race have triggered a statewide recount under state law, because vote totals for McCormick and Casey are within a 0.5% margin.
• How close is it? Casey: 3,350,972 to McCormick: 3,380,310. Counties must begin the recount by November 20 and must finish by noon on November 26.
• Results will not be published until the day before Thanksgiving on November 27.
• Moving on.
• In today’s edition of “Hey, You Have Rights!”, let’s look at the Civil Rights Act, or, more properly said, the many Civil Rights Acts.
• The first one was the Civil Rights Act of 1875. It was a United States federal law enacted during the post Civil War Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans.
• The act was designed to "protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights", providing for equal treatment in public accommodations and public transportation and prohibiting exclusion from jury service.
• Did it help? No, not at all. Despite it being signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875, it was not effectively enforced, partly because Grant had favored different measures to help him suppress election-related violence against blacks and Republicans in the Southern United States.
• Sigh.
• Parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were later re-adopted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, but first we have to talk about the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
• The setting: the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education brought the issue of school desegregation to the fore of public attention, as Southern political leaders began a campaign of "massive resistance" against desegregation.
• In the midst of this campaign, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a civil rights bill designed to provide federal protection for African American voting rights; most African Americans in the Southern United States had been disenfranchised by state and local laws.
• Eisenhower signed it into law on September 9, 1957. Did it help?
• No, not much at all. The Senate passed a weak, watered-down version of the House bill which removed stringent voting protection clauses.
• Now we get to the first one that was worth a damn. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and labor law that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
• It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history, and was the positive hallmark of the Lyndon B. Johnson presidency.
• He signed it into law on on July 2, 1964.
• There have been more… the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was also very important and was effectively enforced as well.
• I’m mentioning these things as a reminder that many people went through lifetimes of work to secure the rights that most of us take for granted now. Whatever you do moving forward, please make sure their work wasn’t for nothing.
• And never accept your rights being removed without fighting with all of your strength. Thank you.
• And now, The Weather: “Century Love” by urika's bedroom
• From the Sports Desk… if you don’t respect LeBron James, the all-time leading scorer in the NBA who will turn 40 years old next month, I don’t know what to tell you.
• But last night, King James had 35 points, 14 assists and 12 rebounds for his third straight triple-double, and the Los Angeles Lakers rallied to beat the Memphis Grizzlies 128-123.
• Side note: the Lakers are 6-0 at home for the first time since the 2010-11 season. Hmm.
• Today in history… Alexander the Great is crowned pharaoh of Egypt (332 BC). German astronomer Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680, the first comet to be discovered by telescope (1680). ‘Moby-Dick’, a novel by Herman Melville, is published in the USA (1851). Aviator Eugene Burton Ely performs the first takeoff from a ship (1910). The British Broadcasting Company begins radio service in the United Kingdom (1922). Coventry, UK is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers (1940). Ruby Bridges becomes the first Black child to attend an all-White elementary school in Louisiana (1960). American physicist Theodore Maiman is given a patent for his ruby laser systems, the world's first laser (1967). NASA launches Apollo 12, the second crewed mission to the surface of the Moon (1969). A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close (1995). Astronomers discover 90377 Sedna, the most distant trans-Neptunian object (2003). Israel launches a major military operation in the Gaza Strip in response to an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas (2012).
• November 14 is the birthday of violinist/composer Leopold Mozart (1719), engineer Robert Fulton (1765), pianist/composer Fanny Mendelssohn (1805), painter Claude Monet (1840), India prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1889), composer Aaron Copland (1900), author/illustrator William Steig (1907), politician Joseph McCarthy (1908), producer Sherwood Schwartz (1916), actor Brian Keith (1921), actor McLean Stevenson (1927), keyboardist/composer Wendy Carlos (1939), journalist P. J. O’Rourke (1947), UK king Charles III (1948), singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop (1951), politician Condoleezza Rice (1954), pianist/composer Yanni (1954), NBA player Jack Sikma (1955), actress Laura San Giacomo (1962), hip-hop artist Joseph Simmons (1964), actor Patrick Warburton (1964), singer-songwriter/guitarist Nina Gordon (1967), drummer/songwriter Travis Barker (1975), actress Vanessa Bayer (1981), NFLplayer Kyle Orton (1982), singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe (1983), and NFL player DeVonta Smith (1998).

That’s seems like plenty of news and whatnot for now. I want to tell you all… there are plenty of good things just over the horizon. Never assume the worst. Final note: the more active you are in helping determine your own destiny, the better you’ll feel. Enjoy your day.